Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.

Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

HBO released a new trailer for season seven of Game of Thrones last week.

Here's the trailer, some shares from articles online, a mashup of all the trailers to date (EXCELLENT!!), and finally a bit of deleted scenes from previous seasons.

I have been a fan of these books from the late 1990s. I caught on right after Clash of Kings came out, so 1998.

I have been an avid fan ever since, reading all the books at least once and then the show. My wife and I watch the show together. She tried to read the first book but didn't finish.

Now, for the first time ever, the show is moving beyond the books into uncharted territory. Fans are a buzz. Will the stories be canon? Will we see what will be depicted in the books when George RR Martin finally finishes the series?

Supposedly, The Winds of Winter will be released this year, 2017. I have written to George a few times over the years in support of his process, urging him to take his time, and letting him know that there are patient fans out there willing to wait.

I felt the last two books were a bit of a let down from the first three, so I am hopeful that The Winds of Winter will jack up the intensity as the series winds to a close (only one book remaining -- A Dream of Spring). When a release date is announced, I may engage in some re-reading, at least of A Dance With Dragons, which is the only one have I read once and only once and not via audio. So I am ready to plug into the audio of that one.

Liesel and I are both excited for season seven.

We will be moving during the season, so thank goodness for HBO GO, which we may buy separately.

Here's the trailer and a few very minor spoilers. No major spoilers on this page, so you're safe. Anything that feels like a spoiler is just context.

What the heck did Sansa do?

Striding out of the Winterfell Godswood towards camera in slow-motion, Sansa Stark looks like someone who just made a big decision. Her eyes dart — she looks harried, furtive — perhaps wondering if bystanders had witnessed her transgression, or to see if there are any witnesses at all. She doesn’t look like a person with a clear conscience.

What has Sansa done? Her walk is accompanied by a great game-themed voiceover by Littlefinger. And at the end of the trailer, she whispers that “the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” We know Sansa is prepared to do anything and everything necessary to make certain the Stark “pack” emerges victorious, even if what she must do is brutally distasteful to her, such as betraying the wishes of too-honorable-for-his-own-good-or-anybody-else’s Jon Snow.

Where is Arya Stark, exactly?

The trailer has a nice shot of Arya riding along on horseback with absolutely no background reference. The open sky could suggest a shoreline, but that’s pretty thin. In her thick clothing, she’s certainly dressed for cold. She appears to be looking intently at something. Winterfell? The previous trailer showed her in a snowy forest. But this could be almost anywhere.

The next season of Game of Thrones is looking more like a movie franchise than a season of television. With fewer episodes and longer runtimes, including a record 81-minute season finale, it promises to be a groundbreaking cinematic experience on the small screen. If you want proof, all you have to do is watch this three-minute trailer mashup that looks like it belongs in a movie theater.

YouTuber Sebastian Hughes has combined all the trailers and promos for Game of Thrones season 7 into one (mostly) seamless trailer, throwing together related scenes and stories to give us even further insight into where these characters are and where they’re going.

It’s hard not to watch something like this and marvel at the fact that it’s not actually a feature film, but rather a television series. It shows how far television has come as a medium that it can produce something this big and beautiful. You can check out the trailer mashup below. Game of Thrones returns July 16.

Screenwriter and producer Bryan Cogman calls season 7 an entirely different show. “It’s sort of phase three.” Which parts were phases one and two, exactly?

Cogman says the theme for season 7 could be “Worlds colliding,” with most of the characters coming together at some point. The showrunners, he notes, have “some spectacular stuff planned.”

Conleth Hill (Varys) has a brother who does sound for the show, and who just won his third Emmy. Congrats, Ronan!

While on set, the team from SFX witnessed three “craftspeople” in the sculptor’s hut shaping 40 blocks of polystyrene that when stacked resembled the dimensions of a double decker bus. We have an idea what they were working on.

Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth) delivers a great quote about the women on the show:

When I first read the books and [heard] they were turning them into a TV show, I wondered if they would cut down the point of view female characters. And I was really pleased that those female characters were honoured and continue to be at the forefront of the show. And we see a development of the female characters that I think is three-dimensional, is complex, is conflicted — and is powerful.

Sophie Turner, for her part, says that Sansa Stark will be “strong and steely” in season 7.

Turner says Sansa feels like she should be Queen in the North, and that there is some jealousy on her part towards her half-brother/cousin Jon Snow for being crowned king.

Turner agrees that Sansa has had some bad luck in the love department, but now that she’s safe and sound at Winterfell, she just ain’t got time for that. “She’s got other things on her mind.”

When asked if she would like to see Hodor come back to the show as a White Walker (even though he would technically be a wight), Turner definitely does not rule it out. “Hodor as a White Walker might be slightly terrifying.” We see you, Sophie Turner, being cagey, dancing around the hard questions. Keep it up.

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.

I am Christopher Tower the gmr

I am Christopher Tower (or Chris), and I am a writer of stuff. I live in Michigan. I play Ultimate, ride a bike, and supposedly educate college persons while myself being educated in college. I am married with two kids, a beagle, a curly lab, and a grouchy black cat. I like sushi. I love all SF, fantasy, comic books, D&D, board games, and Gnosticism. I am a Jungian. I am currently studying computer science at WMU.

EFF

Satchel

SENSE OF DOUBT STATUS AS OF 0705.04 - 16:45

Sense of Doubt is not currently dedicated to any themes or special interest. The subject matter is mine and may range from comic books to ultimate or from Baseball to feminist-centered media criticism. Until I feel I have enough content for multiple blogs, or until I am seized with a desire to create multiple blogs, this is it, and appropriately so. "Sense of Doubt" came about in Bowie’s Berlin period and the dark, ambient collaborations with Brian Eno. Like the Bowie of 1978, I have my own darkness that steals over me and through me, infecting everything. At the risk of sounding far too melodramatically obsessed with my own self-flagellations, this blog dedicates itself to that darkness, that infection. But it’s fun, too. Hey, I can be amusing? Or not. It’s the way of the [w]rench. Neurosis compelling action in insecure double-checking and misunderstanding evasions. It is my way.

More from the original description text that needed editing in 2015: Furthermore, Sense of Doubt is dedicated to the random. The theme is no theme. Just questions, doubt, and uncertainty. Feel the power of not knowing the answer. So dedicated on the last day of July 2006 by the Galactic Monkey Wrench.

The Blog about my job

It's about how my identity was taken from me by the powers that think they be, an identity, a job, I held for ten years. Go there if curious.

the galactic monkey wrench

The Galactic Monkey Wrench

This is the logo of the Galactic Monkey Wrench. I was given the nickname Galactic Monkey Wrench in college by a friend of mine who felt that I threw the monkey wrench into the cosmos at every available opportunity. Later, in discussions with my best friend, who isthe Lord of Chaos (the Loc), he asked for my title and when I told him, without thinking, he blurted out "the gmr!" Since this was random and we appreciate randomness, I became the gmr, even though technically I should be the gmw. But gmw sounds like a car or some industrial manufacturing firm that makes a strange widget of which one has never heard.
This acronym fetish may make no sense to anyone else, but my friend and I are quite driven to provide acronyms for many things. At the very least, it allows us to keep our conversations obscure and often private as no one knows about what we're talking.

Sense of Doubt Rare video

the gmrstudios repository of doubt

Christopher Tower's Facebook Posts

Monkey Wrench Books

This book is a little slower than the others. But if you become invested in this series, it provides key information about the history of Westeros and the lands across the Narrow Sea. It may not contain chapters with my favorite characters ...

Do I really need to review this book? It's one of the best books I have ever read. Martin is a great writer. All the books are great, and I am loving my time rereading them. If you have not checked out these books, start here and get ready ...

These books are immensely entertaining. Treat yourself to some strong writing, great action, compelling characters, and a mix of metaphysics and theology. The ending of this third book, which is presumably the last, is anti-climactic and so...

This was a fun book. Not OSC's best but very good OSC nonetheless. The best thing about is the time travel, slowing, and speeding powers of the characters and how OSC engages the reader in discussion of causality and time paradox. For fans ...

This book came to me via my wife Liesel who discovered it and urged me to read it. Beautifully written with compelling characters and a sense of the magical (yet realistic, somewhat). Funny yet full of the pathos that marks a good if not gr...